The Super Memory System For Presenters

I recently had an opportunity to deliver a 45-minute keynote as part of a training session kick-off for a group of IT Mangers. I decided that in order to boost my creditability with this hard-nosed group, I needed to stay in eye contact with them and not be looking at my notes. This meant memorization.

Here’s how I did it:

• I broke the speech up into sections – my speech resulted in 9 sections.
• I then broke each section up into “ideas” – basically sentences.
• I then picked a place that I had lived in the past (a school or any place that you know well would have done fine also). The only requirement was that it had to have multiple, distinct “locations” – in this case rooms.
• Then I pictured myself in a room such as the kitchen. I could see myself sitting a the table in a particular chair.
• Next I came up with a picture AND an action for the first idea / sentence that I wanted to memorize.

Here’s how I had written my speech to start out:

“I’d like to start out our time together today by asking you a simple question: where do you want you want to be at in your career 5 years from now? That will be 2014 – it’s just 1,825 days from right now. I have no idea what you will be doing in 5 years, but there is one thing that I know with 100% certainty – the job that you are doing right now will no longer exist.”

• I basically had three image / actions to create. Remember, these are highly personal – what you come up with just has to work for you.
• My first image was of 5 calendars: one each being stuck to each of  the fingers on my right hand. I was shaking that hand very hard and they all flew off.
• My second image was of a stack of those one-a-day calendar tear-off sheets in a really, really tall pile sitting before me. Just to make it more vivid I pictured it as being sheets from the Dilbert: 2009 Day-to-Day Calendar. I then pictured a card in front of this stack that said “1,825 days” and the stack falling over and making a real mess on the floor.
• Finally, on the table in front  of me behind the stack of calendar sheets was a very small model of a worker in a cubicle typing away on a computer. All of a sudden a trap door built into the table swung open and the little cubicle vanished.

There you have it. When I went to give my speech, I didn’t even try to recall the words that I had written down. Instead, I had three pictures flash in my head – calendars stuck to my fingers, a stack of calendar pages, and a disappearing cubicle. Without looking at any notes, I was able to quickly and easily recall what I wanted to say without having to look at any notes!

Have you ever had to give a speech without using notes. How long was the speech? How did you memorize what you had to say? How did it go? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Presenters Need A Way To Memorize Their Speeches

Congratulations – you’ve been invited to speak for 30 minutes. Remember – don’t use any notes! If you got this offer could you do it?

As though standing in front of a group of people was not scary enough,  now you have to find a way to shove 30 minutes (that’s 1,800 seconds) worth of information into your head – and recall it under pressure. Given that we all talk at about 150 words/min, you’re looking at memorizing 4,500 words. Good luck!

I recently had an opportunity to deliver a 45-minute keynote as part of a training session kick-off for a group of IT Mangers. I decided that in order to boost my creditability with this hard-nosed group, I needed to stay in eye contact with them and not be looking at my notes. This meant memorization.

Now let me make a confession – I hate it when people memorize their speeches. When they do this, they have a tendency to deliver them in an automatic robot-like manner that has virtually no emotion because they are trying so hard to remember what they want to say next. I was determined to avoid this!

Here’s what I did to get ready for this speech:

• I wrote the speech out word-for-word. This allowed me to create a 6,750 word speech (45 minutes) so that I would exactly fill my time slot.
• I then “tuned” the words trying to drop in as many memorable phrases as possible. This is the real advantage of writing your speech out completely.
• I then memorized the speech.

… and that’s what you really want to about. But, I’m out of space for now so I’ll share all of the secrets about how I memorized this speech with you next time.

Have you ever had to give a speech without using notes. How long was the speech? How did you memorize what you had to say? How did it go? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

No related posts.